


Keep This Light

by ideallyqualia



Series: Rare Pairs [67]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Universe, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 06:42:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8276422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideallyqualia/pseuds/ideallyqualia
Summary: Goshiki's crush deepens further still.





	

Someone left the window open in the dorm building's common area. A cold breeze swept in, mixing and failing to settle. Goshiki could feel the chill on his right side, and the stifled heat of the stuffy hallway drifting in on his other side. It was the time in between seasons, summer withdrawing at a pace of a growing blade of grass, and autumn struggling to grow at all -- like the awkward phase of a baby bird coming into a set of downy juvenile feathers, and nothing else.

Goshiki kept removing his jacket and putting it back on.

"What'cha up to, Tsutomu?" Tendou asked at the entryway. He strolled in and took a seat beside Goshiki.

Goshiki's hands fell in his lap over the pile of jacket. "I don't know."

"Don't know? So, nothing. Is that it?" Tendou took out his laptop and balanced it on his knees. He reclined against the back of the couch.

Adequate space remained between them so they didn't touch. Tendou, even in his characteristic spread-eagle fashion, didn't brush against Goshiki. His sweats and shirt made him appear more messy and spread-eagled than usual.

"Not nothing. I'm trying to think."

Tendou hummed to match the animating whirr of his laptop.

Goshiki turned. "Is it supposed to make loud noises when it turns on? Isn't that bad?"

"It's not bad. It does that."

"Is it old?"

"Stop, Tsutomu," Tendou said with a hand raised. At the definitive beep of life, Tendou squirmed to sit straight and start typing.

Goshiki stared ahead again. "I tried doing homework, but I finished, and I still don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"The homework."

"Mm. Can't help there." Tendou lowered his head to the keyboard. "It's so cold. It's going to heat up in a little while..."

Goshiki leaned closer to look at his screen. His desktop was full of screenshots of mangas titled with unintelligible numbers.

Tendou raised his head. "This is private stuff. Don't peek."

"I don't see anything."

"Shhh. Don't speak." Tendou leaned in to focus on typing.

Goshiki let his arms flop to his sides. "I don't want to study."

Semi appeared at the entrance to the room. "This is the worst place to study if you came to do it."

"Eita-kun!" Tendou jerked up. "Sit with us!"

Semi's head turned slowly, his eyes flicking from Tendou right away but lingering on Goshiki. "I can't get anything done when I'm sitting with any of you."

"Any? There's only two of us." Tendou collected himself to make space. "C'mon."

Semi hesitated. His school bag, filled with notebooks and prepared with work, slipped down his arm from his shoulder.

Goshiki stretched his feet out and sat forward in curiosity, his hands on the couch between his legs. "If you can't study here, why'd you come?" he asked.

"I'm not going to _study_." Semi sat down in an armchair across from them. A small desk hung from the armrest, and he swung it up to poise it for a notebook.

Goshiki watched. "Then what're you going to do?"

"I have a physics lab in a few days. We're supposed to copy the procedure into a lab notebook. It's really pointless." Semi opened it, and he used enough force to let the cover slap on the desk.

"Mindless repetition? My favorite." Tendou clacked a few more sentences on his keyboard.

Both of them fell back on silence. Goshiki glanced between them, and after a minute, he reached for his laptop from his school bag.

Semi looked at Goshiki. "What is it, Goshiki?"

Goshiki stiffened. "What?"

"I can tell you're expecting something, or you want to ask something." Semi eyed his hands. "You keep fidgeting."

"No I don't!" Goshiki clasped them together. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Alright, if you say so." Semi returned to writing.

Tendou swiveled his computer screen. "Check it out, Tsutomu."

By the time he turned his screen, the video had ended. Tendou scrambled to play it again.

"What is it?" Goshiki asked. "I can't tell what it is. The video's too short."

"Just watch."

Tendou replayed it. A cockatoo screeched in the video, and after a couple seconds, it fell off its table with a terrified squawk.

"This isn't that funny," Goshiki said, his nose wrinkling.

Tendou laughed. "Want to watch it again? It's funnier the more you watch it!"

Goshiki made a questioning noise in his throat. "Uh..."

It played again. The screech-squawk sequence barely occupied a few moments, but it left Tendou howling.

Semi's hand came down on his notebook. "Can you be quieter?" he asked Tendou.

"Oh, do you want to see it too?"

"No."

"I think Wakatoshi'll want to see this."

"Wouldn't that stress him out?"

"Nothing happens! It's funny," Tendou said. He nodded. "I fell off a table, once. Nothing happened."

Semi choked on his breath. "When?"

"Wasn't that...last month?" Goshiki asked. "You got on the table to catch a bug that flew to the ceiling, and you fell."

"Last month? Was it? Maybe it really was last month." Tendou crossed his arms, his head swaying slightly, like a leaf in the wind.

"You're really bad at telling stories," Semi said with a shake of his head.

"I'm not bad. How about you, Tsutomu? Do you have any stories to tell? Are you better than us?" Tendou rocked forward in his seat.

"I don't have any."

"Make one up."

"Aren't we trying to tell things that actually happened?"

Tendou raised his finger. "Oh, I got it. If you think we should really use stuff that's real, then say things that haven't happened yet."

Goshiki's head tilted. "What...?"

"Give me a fortune, Tsutomu."

"Oh." Goshiki pushed the back of his hand against his face in thought, and when he pushed so hard his knuckles cracked, he moved his hand to his neck. "You're going to...find someone's glasses."

"Mm. That's boring. Make it longer than one sentence."

"You're going to find someone's glasses by stepping on it. It belongs to a teacher. You throw it in the trash."

"That's kind of mean," Semi said.

Tendou motioned at Semi. "Now do Eita-kun."

"Semi-san? Oh, uh," Goshiki said, his hands flustering and hovering in the air above his keyboard. "Semi's going to find...a dead rat."

"...What?" Semi asked in a slow drawn-out question. "Why?"

Goshiki opened and closed his hands, drawing his fingers over his computer keys. He shifted and held the back of his head. "I don't know, I think, it's because you're a cat in the next life."

Tendou erupted into red-faced laughter. "A _cat_!"

Semi's eyebrow rose, and his mouth quirked, slightly, setting with the rest of his face. "Alright, Goshiki."

"It's all I thought of, sorry! The first thing that came up...!"

"How come his fortune is so much better than mine?" Tendou asked. "Give me a better one!"

"That's not how fortunes work. You have to accept whatever you get." Semi resumed writing, a noticeable lightness cast in his shoulders and arms.

Tendou leaned back and grumbled. "Tsutomu, you're never going to make it as an oracle or fortune-giver. Fortune-teller. Fortune-seller? Anyway, it's your turn to shine, Eita. Tell a story."

"I don't have any."

"Hrmmm." Tendou typed and scrolled, already losing interest in the topic. "I forgot to preorder this video game..."

Goshiki shimmied back into his jacket. "It's getting cold."

"You've been taking your jacket off and putting it back on the entire time." Tendou clicked his tongue.

"You could've just closed the window." Semi moved to get up.

"But then it'll get hot," Goshiki said.

Semi hesitated. "Should I close it or not?"

"...No."

Tendou laughed. "He'll change his mind in a second."

"I won't! I can just keep using my jacket." Goshiki tightened it around his chest and stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets.

Semi went back to copying. Tendou opened a game in his browser. Background music faintly played from his computer, low and generic accompaniment to the fantasy-adventure battling.

Goshiki's computer remained on a window of fifteen video tabs when he fell asleep. He drifted to the side and leaned his shoulder against the back of the couch, facing Tendou.

Tendou leaned forward to whisper in Semi's direction. "He really fell asleep."

"Let him sleep," Semi said.

"Fine." Tendou stretched his arms and folded them behind his head. "I'm starting to get hungry."

He didn't do anything about it. They moved along in their respective tasks for an hour, leaving Goshiki to nap sitting up.

A sudden clang on the floor woke him up. He startled awake, dropping his jacket as he swiveled with wide eyes.

Tendou picked his phone off the floor. "Oops. Sorry there, Tsutomu! I dropped my phone."

Goshiki recovered and rubbed at his eyes. "Wha...? How long was I asleep?"

"About an hour," Semi said as he typed on his computer. He scratched his forehead and leaned into his hand, his eyes hardening.

Goshiki rummaged his hand in his hair and yawned. He still resided in a bleary sleepiness, barely conscious and present. He flopped over the armrest and hung there. His line of sight led to Semi, and he watched as Semi bit his lip concentrating. His focus was hardened, but in the haze of waking from dark and dreams, Semi's eyes still looked soft against his skin.

Semi closed his computer. "I think I'm done."

"Already?" Tendou asked. "Aw."

"I can't sit still and study anymore." Semi stood and held his shoulder, working his arm in a rotation. "I have to stretch my legs."

Tendou jumped to his feet. "I'm hungry. Wanna go with me to get food? It's in my room."

"Yeah, fine." Semi glanced at Goshiki. "Do you want anything?"

Goshiki stared at him for a moment. He opened his mouth in a wordless noise. "Eh, uhh, no, I'm okay."

"Alright then, let's go," Semi said. He turned, and Tendou bounded to his side and pulled ahead to lead the way.

Once they left, Goshiki eyed Semi's chair. He shifted in indecision. They wouldn't take too long, but Goshiki still wanted Semi's seat. Specifically a seat that was his. Semi left his jacket behind, and it lied over the back of the armchair.

Goshiki crept forward and slid in. It felt warm, like an essence of Semi's body heat lingered, and its own gravity kept it in place. Unlike the mixed heat of the room with its open window, the low warmth of the chair was slight, emanating softly, like laundry-fresh blankets. Goshiki huddled and curled to the armrest.

Tendou returned with cookies and chips in his arms, and Semi behind him. At the sight of Goshiki, Tendou's head tilted with a coo.

"Aww, the picture of cuteness. Take a picture of him!"

Tendou's voice sent Goshiki flinching and rushing to get up. He landed on his knees and climbed back to the couch.

"It's not that big a deal, Tsutomu," Semi said.

"Sorry--I didn't think!"

Semi gave a breath of laughter as he and Tendou walked in. Semi reclaimed his chair, and Goshiki shrunk in his seat, settling into a slouched ball, his head low enough against the couch armrest to hide.

 

* * *

 

 

Goshiki has no experience in these kinds of things. Not even vicarious experience through reading books and watching anime. He's read romance manga of varying genres, a fraction of them courtesy of Tendou to humor him, and the rest he had found on his own, out of curiosity and boredom.

Looking back, there's nothing useful he can extract from them. There's nothing to put to use, or anything to follow, Semi is _this_ special -- a balanced sum of everything Goshiki can't understand or explain. Semi possessed a sternness that made Goshiki afraid of annoying him, but his easygoing and freely given smile convinced him enough that it wasn't true. Semi's balance also meant that he deflected Shirabu's scoldings for Goshiki, and diverted Tendou's eccentricities at his worst, and the planets aligned in perfect order in Shiratorizawa's bubble of universe.

That was the bubble Goshiki entered at practice. He stared at Semi's elbows, admiring the frustrated red of his skin; a sign that Semi was holding his arms too tightly, or he had spent too long leaning on them on the floor for breaks and warmup stretches. The wind outside was chilly, and winter logically followed from there, in Goshiki's train of thought. Long-sleeved sweaters, flushed red faces in cold and snow -- Goshiki could put together the image: how Semi _might_ look in winter and a jacket, and when he unzipped it and took it off, slightly too warm but happy.

"How long are you going to zone out?" Shirabu asked. "I have to set to you."

"Oh, okay!" Goshiki spun and followed him. "What're you going to set today? Anything new?"

"No." Shirabu bounced the volleyball in front of the net. "I don't know what else to do with you yet."

"Why not?"

"You already fit my tosses well. I can't think of anything better." Shirabu paused, his hands around the volleyball. "Has Semi tossed to you before? I have the feeling he has."

Goshiki stiffened. "What? Why? Uh??"

Shirabu raised an eyebrow. "Goshiki?"

"No I don't want him to! I didn't ask, I wouldn't ask. I'm happy with yours!"

"Alright, Goshiki, forget it." Shirabu sighed. "Get ready."

Spiking and tossing practices continued. Goshiki shook off any suspicion from Shirabu by fulfilling his tosses, and they settled into a comfortable pace.

Semi approached them. "How're you doing? Do you need help?"

Shirabu motioned at Goshiki's quiet flustered fidget. "I don't, but he's jittery here and there. I can't deal with him when he's had too much coffee or any of those energy drinks Tendou gives him."

Semi laughed. "So you need help, Shirabu."

Shirabu pressed the volleyball between his hands, his arms straightening horizontal as he applied force. He pushed it into Semi.

"Take it, then."

Semi accepted it and moved to the place Shirabu vacated. "Did you really have coffee or an energy drink?"

Goshiki tightened his mouth and shook his head.

"Okay. I don't know what's gotten into Shirabu. Maybe he's in a mood," Semi said.

Semi tossed to him for a few minutes. Goshiki missed several times. His hand didn't completely miss and fumble through air, he managed to clip the ball and give it a new spin, but the awkward spikes had such an unsatisfying momentum and sound that Goshiki groaned.

"I can't hit them today!"

"It's alright. It's just practice, and I rarely toss to you." Semi brushed his hand over his head.

Goshiki shifted on his feet and weighed the situation again. Semi in volleyball mode handled everything so well, handled with a care that Goshiki misread and felt as a close personal touch of care.

Semi looked at him. "Tsutomu?"

Goshiki swiveled to him. "Yes!"

"Uh, now that I have your attention, let's go again." Semi retrieved a ball from the supply cart.

Goshiki missed a few more tosses, cuffing the ball at the edge of his hand. He stepped back and shielded his eyes with his arm.

"I can't spike!"

Semi rubbed the back of his neck. "You react differently between my spikes and Shirabu's. I don't understand..."

Goshiki mumbled wordlessly into his hands.

**Author's Note:**

> this isn't unrequited btw... don't assume it is...
> 
> (General A/N that exists at the end of all my fics): I find unsolicited concrit really rude, I'm not looking for any. Please don't tell me someone was OOC/something happened you didn't like/it's too short/etc. in any bookmarks or comments.


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